emily gaarder
My name is Emily Gaarder and I’m a professor at the University of Minnesota. I teach in the department of sociology and anthropology, and I’m also the author of a book called “Women and the Animal Rights Movement.
- Emily Gaarder
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1. What inspired you to write a whole book about the role of women specifically in the animal rights movement?
I wrote that book because as a social activist myself and a feminist, I was really interested to understand that historically and today women have made a majority of animal rights activists and organizers. I was interested to learn why that is so and their experiences in the movement. In my book, I interview 27 women who are animal rights activists as well as do some field research and understanding more of the work that is going on.
2. Why did you choose to feature PETA in your book? What made them stand out/ what did they do differently than other ARO’s that caught your eye?
One of the things I encountered and wrote about in my book was the controversy over PETA, which is People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals. It’s one of the most well known animal rights organizations in the United States and that’s partly because of the provocative media campaigns that they use. A lof of these campaigns are sources of controversy for women because of the sexually provocative ways they invite women to participate in the campaigns. For example, Pamela Anderson in the anti-fur campaign (shows poster). Other campaigns in the “Go Naked” campaign focus on vegetarianism or anti-circus or anti-zoo campaigns and animal issues of that nature.
3. From your professional point of view, are women more opposed to PETA’s controversial ads or do they accept it as a helpful method to promote animal rights?
The question that I asked women in my book was whether they supported that kind of advertisement. I didn’t survey the general women population on how they react to those type of ads than men and I didn’t ask all the people in the animal rights movement even of course, I just had a small sample that provided a little flavor to what the debate is about. So folks who support those ads feel that if sex sells in the society than we should do whatever we can to educate and get attention to the issues at hand so if naked women is what will get people’s attention then let’s use naked women. Folks feel that if PETA says they get more hits on their site after these types of ads then there must be some traction gained in the movement and that’s a good thing. And for folks who are opposed to the ads it’s generally a couple of different reasons. One is that we are exploiting women for the cause of animals, so why do we have to drag down girls and women to promote animal rights. To women it feels counterproductive. Why should we objectify women to say we shouldn’t objectify animals and do that to animals? So for instance, the portrayal of naked women behind bars to symbolize captivated animals seems to be using a little bit of backward and illogic.So, the reason that I really wanted to focus on that in the book is that it exemplifies attention that’s in the movement in general about “is this movement really just about creating freedoms for animals and social change for animals? Or is it a movement that understands that social change for animals and issues of oppression and abuse of animals is related to some of the cultural beliefs and values that also promote racism and sexism and things of that nature?” So if you’re going to exploit women’s bodies to show that exploiting animal bodies is wrong then maybe we’re missing a kind of partnership of issues that could be focused on. In other words, seeing social change as something that’s connected to each other not separate issues. Among the sample of women I talked to, about 44% of the women opposed the ads, 30% liked them and 27% really felt caught in the middle. That was because they actually felt some pressure to participate in the ads especially things like live demonstrations or protests where its not celebrities who are volunteering to participate in the ads but its everyday activists. You might be invited to participate in a go-naked vegetarian campaign as a street demonstration or examples of women in bikinis wrestling in tofu to promote vegetarianism.
4. Do you agree with their opinions on PETA’s sexualized ads?
So, my own opinion about those kinds of protests is that I think that they absolutely create a lot of buzz and sensation, and there’s a lot of other ways to do that as well that can be effective; you can use humor and theater, to do that in a lot of ways that don’t necessarily-are not centered around asking women in the movement to, you know, get naked or walk around in bikinis at the demonstrations. To me, given that women have been the primary organizers and movers of animal rights for so long, I really just would feel very cautious about these kinds of campaigns because I don’t want girls or women who are interested in animal rights to feel like that’s the contribution that they’re supposed to be making to the movement when there’s so many other amazing things and amazing work to do around issues of animal abuse and exploitation, not, you know, just taking your clothes off so, I think that that’s definitely a concern for the movement.
5. Do you believe that the use of women in these ads have taken the spotlight from the animals in any way? Or is this technique of marketing helping the movement get the attention it needs?
I have heard other people express the concern that it takes the focus actually off the animals its more on the naked celebrity or getting people to go to a website not necessarily because they’re interested in looking at information about animal issues, but so that they can look at pictures of naked women. I do not think that we have any really good data or research to suggest that we know that sexualized advertising campaigns actually do anything to change people’s behavior or bring them into the animal rights movement. In fact, these kinds of campaigns also can have a negative effect, which is they turn people off or turn people away from the movement. So it does have that negative affect as well.
6. After doing extensive research about PETA and the role of women in the animal rights movement, why do you believe this organization is the largest in the nation?
I think that PETA is an incredibly creative organization that uses a lot of humor and that I would really enjoy seeing more of that humor and creativity put toward campaigns that also really promote gender equality and are not relying on tired old notions about women’s naked bodies to sell the issue of animal rights. I’m not really that convinced that that is a way that people connect to animal issues anyway. More of the research that talks about why people become animal rights activists or make a change to something like a plant based diet or not wearing fur or changing their minds to animal experimentation would be that they become educated or understand what is actually happening to animals in those situations and understanding what the alternatives are. I personally would like to see campaigns- and I DO see campaigns that focus more on that that I think are also having some good success.
7. Could it be that the controversy over their modus operandi actually contributed to its popularity and efficiency in promoting animal rights? Why or why not?
I think that the technique of this kind of marketing gets the movement some attention. I think the question that would be great to answer would be is “is that the kind of attention that’s actually translating into success or is it turning people off?” And then lastly the question about trying to find a way to really make animal rights relevant and connected to the other major social issues of our time which are racism and economic inequality and gender inequality. I would really like to see animal issues connected to those social change issues as well in a really positive way that would promote all of those issues together. Those are some of my insights and some of my opinions about the issue of PETA and I think that those people who are interested in that issue should look into different organizations, not just PETA and see what their stance is on different issues around animal rights and the tactics that they’re using to try to get others to think critically about issues of animals in society.